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Fall of the Eladrin
The boy in white tells Tingle to follow the glowing inscription along the cave wall, which leads him through a series of tunnels with several more. After nearly an hour, Tingle emerges from the cave network and into a small, snowy valley where he makes camp for the night. Back in the orcish stronghold, the rest of the party is forced to leave by the surviving orcs. In the wake of their chieftain's death, many of them are visibly restraining their anger. Roach spots dozens of caged slaves as he prepares to leave, which boldly prompts him to bargain for their freedom with one of the orc leaders. However, this only infuriates the leader and the rest of the horde, who round up the party and have them thrown into a dark chasm one by one. Taigus becomes separated from the party. In retaliation, Roach and Lau collapse the stronghold's cave ceiling with well-aimed spells and escape the darkness through a side tunnel. They happen upon a glowing Elvish inscription along the cave wall, which Lau translates as "a light in the dark for those who are lost". Roach concludes that this is one among many elven waystones in the area and that they were long-ago established to provide a safe and secret route through the mountains. Following the stones, Roach, Lau, and Hachiman flee from a swarm of chittering creatures and come to the same snowy valley that Tingle arrived at earlier. They approach his camp and rest beside him. In the morning, the party is approached by an eladrin villager named Jamorn. Judging the party to be knowledgeable and well-traveled people, he asks them to invistigate a series of deaths in his eladrin village of Xantorin; every night at 12:01, Jamorn explains, a random villager suddenly drops dead without any explanation. Finding this strange, the party agrees to help. Arriving at Xantorin, they see that most of it sits near a forest and that is buildings are built from wood, which confounds the party since they are not used to so much natural vegetation. Jamorn tells the party that he might be able to give them a key to the Archive as a reward for solving the mysterious deaths. Roach and Hachiman visit the houses of the victims and find several body parts stowed under their beds and within their cupboards. They realize that these parts all belong to the same person, a powerful witch, and that they are allowing her to cast spells from beyond the grave. Believing her magic to be responsible for the recent deaths, they burn the body parts and release the village from her grip. The villagers of Xantorin begin arranged a banquet to celebrate. At midnight, in the feast hall, the party is fed more food than they've ever seen before. Roach stuffs his face with a variety of tasty meats and breads as Tingle takes to the stage to sing. Sensing something amiss, however, Lau leaves the hall with Tingle's mastiff Douglas and patrols the village. He comes across a hidden cellar in the inn and climbs into it, finding a bleak room with a locked door at the other end. A putrid smell emanates from the other side. After failing to pick the lock, he is hit over the head from behind and falls unconscious. Douglas runs back to the party, telling Tingle and others that Lau was captured by "bad men". Lying to Jamorn, they leave the feast hall and head to the inn. Lau wakes up in one of the cellar rooms, chained to the ceiling, with Taigus Krayn and another man chained up next to him. Both of them are unconscious. Lau sees two eladrin butchering and eating a living person, and realizes that he is about to be killed next. He uses mage hand to steal the keys from one of his captors' belts, discreetly unlocks his cuffs, and then proceeds to attack both of the butchers. He murders one, but the other makes it outside, where he is discovered and killed by the rest of the party. Jamorn emerges from the feast hall with most of the village at his back. Surmising that the party discovered something that they weren't supposed to, the villagers offer to explain their cannibalism to them. Lau, however, attacks them from the rooftop of the inn and then sets it on fire, causing chaos to erupt. Tingle murders Jamorn and retrieves a key to the Archive from him. After being soundly defeated, the remaining villagers flee to the hills, while Taigus and the other man are rescued from the cellar by the party. Hachiman recognizes this other person as Doctor Balthesar, one of the scientists that experimented on him and several others many months ago. Hachiman chooses to forgive and spare Balthesar. The doctor tells him everything he knows about the experiments and Ardveg Luthana, the man who was in charge of them. Behind one of the locked doors in the cellar, Lau finds a crimson orb atop a makeshift pedestal. Drawing near it, he shakes off a dark sensation that threatens to overwhelm his mind, then tries destroying it after realizing it is an Orb of Craving. Nothing happens. Roach also tries to destroy it, but he is equally unable to damage the Orb. The Orb is capable of turning nearby fey creatures into bloodthirsty cannibals, which Balthesar suspects is the reason for Xantorin's rampant cannibalism. Not wanting anyone else to fall prey to its dark magic, the party decides to seal the Orb within the cellar. Category:Episodes Category:Chapter Two